Doing Yardwork

Was outside doing yard work today. Nothing unusual, just had to mow the grass, dead-headed some of my beautiful Meidiland Sevillana roses...and believe me, they really are beautiful roses, very easy to take care of, no worries about mildew or rust, and they just bloom and bloom and bloom! I give them a deep soaking about once a week, if I'm fertilizing the lawn I might throw a hand full of fertilizer on the roses if I think about it! When I'm out working in the front yard, I often have neighbors comment to me how nice my roses look! The picture above is of Sevillana roses, but unfortunately the picture is not from my yard. My roses look just as good as these, but I don't have a camera that would take as beautiful of a picture as this one is!

After I finished up in the front I had to go in the back yard and trim up a planter of Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) or also known as Confederate Jasmine. For those of you not familiar with this plant, it is a Viney type of plant that produces lots and lots of small (about dime sized) white flowers that are ever so sweet to smell. After they finish with a round of flowers, they will send out long, vine like growth that will twist and twine around themselves and any other plants they can grow into, so that is an easy indication that it is time to trim them back down a bit. Now comes the fun part, the leaves and stems are full of a milky white sap that is very sticky. Well, I was doing my gardening chores in my bare feet today as I had surgery on some of my toes a few weeks ago and putting shoes on is still pretty uncomfortable! As I trimmed the long branches, the milky sap started to flow in excess, and as the stems and leafs started falling to the ground, and as I moved around the planter, I began to collect sticky stems and leafs on the bottom of my feet! Before I knew it, the soles of my bare feet were entirely coated with the Star Jasmine leafs and pieces of stems! Couldn't shake them off no matter how hard I tried, and finally had to sit down and peel them all off the bottoms of my feet! I should have just left them stuck to my feet, because I still had to rake up all the fallen debris and in doing that, I again had a thick layer of sticky leafs on my feet. I began to think I was like some monster in an old 'B' grade movie or some giant insect that camouflages itself with all the sticky stems and leaf pieces! As it dries, the sap turns black on your skin, but fortunately it is water soluble and washes of quite readily!

Well, after fantasizing about movie monsters and giant insects, I decided that it was time to cool of in the pool before calling it a day from my yard work!

So long until next time!

Ron, the Plant Man

Hummingbird Nests

Hello to all! Just wanted to add another post to my blog, and wanted to continue along with my Hummingbird line.

I always thought this was an interesting bit of information about Hummingbirds that I learned while working at South Coast Botanic Gardens. There was a tour guide named Eric Brooks, who worked there and was also a bird watcher. He taught me a lot about birds and especially Hummingbirds, and he also provided me with my first Hummingbird feeders to put up and attract the Hummers to the area where I worked.

Eric showed me a Hummingbird nest one day and pointed out to me how the nest had been 'decorated', or perhaps 'camouflaged' might be a better word to use. You can see from the photograph all the little bits of materials that are stuck onto the outside of the nest. The Hummers use materials that are locally available to put around the nest so it will 'blend in' with the surroundings. Most commonly available materials for them to use are lichens, mosses and bits of leaves. However, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where South Coast Botanic Gardens is located, it is a rather affluent neighborhood with a rural flare to it and horses are very much the norm. Horses mean stables and horse trails, and stables and horse trails lead to wooden structures, so City codes were established that all wooden structures had to be painted white which made the neighborhoods look nice and clean. This also meant that one of the most available materials in the area were flecks of white paint, and sure enough, the Hummingbird nest Eric showed me was decorated with flecks of white paint all around the outside of the nest! What opportunists these hummingbirds are!

I'd like to thank Cindy McNatt for allowing me to use the Hummingbird photograph above. Cindy is the Garden editor of the Orange County Register and also publishes a daily blog called Dirt du Jour. Although we have never met personally or spoken on the phone, I feel we have become friends through her articles and blogs and many emails sent back and forth. Cindy is also the one who encouraged me to start this blog!

Have a great day!

Ron, the Plant Man

Tied to Mom's apron strings, a story about Hummingbirds!

One day many years ago, I was working at South Coast Botanic Gardens. There was a lady named Shirley Wells who lived locally who visited the Gardens everyday to observe the Hummingbirds in the Gardens. Shirley was an authority on Hummingbirds and had published many books and papers about the Hummingbirds living on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I was fortunate to meet her and picked her brain about Hummingbirds. I recently found out she died not to long after I left the South Coast gardens and went to the headquarters garden, the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia.

I maintained several hummingbird feeders around the Childrens Garden area where where I was working so she usually spent a lot of time observing the Hummers in that area. This day she pointed out to me a new nest that had just been built. I would watch it each day also to observe what was going on. Two baby Hummers were hatched and the Mother carefully tended to them until it was time for them to leave the nest and fly away on their own. One of the babies did that, but the other just decided he didn't want to leave home. Mom encouraged him for several days, but finally gave up and decided it was time to build a new nest so she could start the next brood. She started the new nest about 10 feet away from the old one, and by this time was completely ignoring 'Junior' in the old nest. Junior watched her carefully, confused as to why he was being ignored, and when the new nest was finished, Junior happily flew over to the new nest and made himself right at home! He stayed for a couple of days while his frustrated Mother did everything possible to drive him away! Talk about being tied to his Mom's apron strings, this little guy surely was! Thank you Shirley for teaching me about Hummingbirds, I still enjoy feeding them and watching them 30 + years later!

If you like my story, leave a comment.

Ron, the Plant Man